Go to Italy or France, or any EU state. The food is better and often cheaper in almost every case.
Even a McDonald's hamburger is good, and not dominated by the fake chemical garlic substitute. In the US, McDonald's french fries contain: Potatoes, Vegetable Oil (canola Oil, Corn Oil, Soybean Oil, Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Natural Beef Flavor [wheat And Milk Derivatives]), Dextrose, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate (maintain Color), Salt. natural Beef Flavor Contains Hydrolyzed Wheat And Hydrolyzed Milk As Starting Ingredients.
I hate to break it to you, but a lot of that difference comes down to labeling and disclosure requirements. If the Italian fries don't even have to disclose what type of oil they use, they probably also don't have to disclose the oil stabilizers and seasonings they use.
Let's not forget that Europe had massive epidemic of horse meat being snuck into the supply chain with no one catching on.
I think your cultural palate is showing. The marketing of a few simple ingredients sounds good except it's not like American McDonalds is putting them in for no reason. You can make the case that fillers are used to cut cost but for french fries all that stuff costs extra. To Americans that shit tastes great.
* The beef flavor is mimicking frying in beef tallow. If you use Marmite in your brown gravy you're using the same trick.
* Americans, being flushed with corn and corn syrup which is sweeter than granulated sugar, developed a sweeter tooth than other places which is why the dextrose.
* Potatoes once cut and exposed to air get that gross dark color. Most home cooks usually solve that by keeping them submerged in water until frying but Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate works the same.
I didn't say there was no world beyond the EU. I'm not personally acquainted with every nation's food regulatory regime. I was just struck by the obvious qualitative difference between even the lowest quality food.
Feel free to regail someone who cares about the food regulations of the world.
The FDA factoid is cool -- they just didn't ban the dye that causes cancer.
I love all kinds of world cuisine, but I did not find the food in France to be better or cheaper than the food in the US, on average (and I love French cuisine). The pastries and wine though... different story!
Not sure on food dyes but my understanding is the FDA is leagues behind the EU on regulation when it comes to food.
My experience in Italy with foods that normally cause some issues (dairy/cheese) really opened my eyes to that. My sister who doesn’t eat cheese/dairy at all here in the US was able to eat it there without issue because of how they process dairy over there or something.
It is more complicated than this, the US has much more rigorous food safety standards in a number of dimensions.
For example, the US has much stricter standards for preventing bacterial contamination than Europe, outside of the Nordics which share similar food safety regulations as the US. The US prohibits a lot of food importation from Europe because of lower food safety standards related to contamination.
Europe makes a lot of food safety exceptions on the basis of a process being "traditional" in some sense, nominally preserving culture. The US is a bit more technocratic less prone to the naturalistic fallacy; the FDA doesn't care that something is cultural or traditional, if there is scientific evidence of material risk then it will be banned.
If I had to summarize their food safety perspectives, the EU tends to focus more on allowable ingredients, the US tends to focus more on the uncontaminated and sterile handling of the food supply chain.
There are some differences between dairy in the US and elsewhere. US dairy cows produce milk containing A1 beta-casein, a protein that some studies suggest may cause digestive discomfort. In Europe, cows often produce A2 beta-casein milk, which some people find easier to digest.
Dairy products in the US tend to contain more lactose, and French/Italian dairy products have less due to the prevalence of aged cheeses and fermentation.
There are many other differences, and none of these seem related to some sort of mystery-makes-you-shit-yourself additive.
<selfpromotion>We sell uncolored raw milk cheddar cheese made with A2 milk, if someone has an issue with cheese in the US give ours a try!</selfpromotion>
Similar thing with my wife and bread. In the US she developed/discovered/exposed a gluten intolerance, to the point that she removed it from her diet entirely, but bread in France is ok for her.
In that case it's not a gluten intolerance; there is gluten in bread in France. Might be a sugar thing? Bread in the US is more likely to contain added sugar and/or HFCS than in most countries.
Quinoline Yellow (E 104), Sunset Yellow FCF/Orange Yellow S (E 110), Azorubine/Carmoisine (E 122), Amaranth (E 123), Ponceau 4R/Cochineal Red A (E 124), Erythrosine/Red No. 3 (E 127), Allura Red AC (E 129), Patent Blue V (E 131), Indigotine/Indigo carmine (E 132), Brilliant Blue FCF (E 133), Green S (E 142), Brilliant Black PN (E 151), Brown HT (E 155), Litholrubine BK (E 180)
Some of these names may be confusing since their names imply they're natural when in fact they are synthetic (e.g. Amaranth, Cochineal Red A, Indigo carmine).
Go to Italy or France, or any EU state. The food is better and often cheaper in almost every case.
Even a McDonald's hamburger is good, and not dominated by the fake chemical garlic substitute. In the US, McDonald's french fries contain: Potatoes, Vegetable Oil (canola Oil, Corn Oil, Soybean Oil, Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Natural Beef Flavor [wheat And Milk Derivatives]), Dextrose, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate (maintain Color), Salt. natural Beef Flavor Contains Hydrolyzed Wheat And Hydrolyzed Milk As Starting Ingredients.
In Italy, the ingredients are: Potato, Oil, Salt.
I hate to break it to you, but a lot of that difference comes down to labeling and disclosure requirements. If the Italian fries don't even have to disclose what type of oil they use, they probably also don't have to disclose the oil stabilizers and seasonings they use.
Let's not forget that Europe had massive epidemic of horse meat being snuck into the supply chain with no one catching on.
I think your cultural palate is showing. The marketing of a few simple ingredients sounds good except it's not like American McDonalds is putting them in for no reason. You can make the case that fillers are used to cut cost but for french fries all that stuff costs extra. To Americans that shit tastes great.
* The beef flavor is mimicking frying in beef tallow. If you use Marmite in your brown gravy you're using the same trick.
* Americans, being flushed with corn and corn syrup which is sweeter than granulated sugar, developed a sweeter tooth than other places which is why the dextrose.
* Potatoes once cut and exposed to air get that gross dark color. Most home cooks usually solve that by keeping them submerged in water until frying but Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate works the same.
Mate, that is labelling requirements. I guarantee most/all of those ""horrible"" ingredients are present in Italian McDonalds.
EU law mandates listing all the ingredients in the food, you can't pick and choose:
https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/product-requirements/f...
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I hate to break this news to you but there are countries outside of the EU.
The FDA also bans more food dyes than the EU.
I didn't say there was no world beyond the EU. I'm not personally acquainted with every nation's food regulatory regime. I was just struck by the obvious qualitative difference between even the lowest quality food.
Feel free to regail someone who cares about the food regulations of the world.
The FDA factoid is cool -- they just didn't ban the dye that causes cancer.
3 replies →
I love all kinds of world cuisine, but I did not find the food in France to be better or cheaper than the food in the US, on average (and I love French cuisine). The pastries and wine though... different story!
This is CLEARLY due to less strict labelling. I mean they just say "oil", what kind of oil?!?!
McDonald's hamburger good in Italy? No way.
Not sure on food dyes but my understanding is the FDA is leagues behind the EU on regulation when it comes to food.
My experience in Italy with foods that normally cause some issues (dairy/cheese) really opened my eyes to that. My sister who doesn’t eat cheese/dairy at all here in the US was able to eat it there without issue because of how they process dairy over there or something.
It is more complicated than this, the US has much more rigorous food safety standards in a number of dimensions.
For example, the US has much stricter standards for preventing bacterial contamination than Europe, outside of the Nordics which share similar food safety regulations as the US. The US prohibits a lot of food importation from Europe because of lower food safety standards related to contamination.
Europe makes a lot of food safety exceptions on the basis of a process being "traditional" in some sense, nominally preserving culture. The US is a bit more technocratic less prone to the naturalistic fallacy; the FDA doesn't care that something is cultural or traditional, if there is scientific evidence of material risk then it will be banned.
If I had to summarize their food safety perspectives, the EU tends to focus more on allowable ingredients, the US tends to focus more on the uncontaminated and sterile handling of the food supply chain.
There are some differences between dairy in the US and elsewhere. US dairy cows produce milk containing A1 beta-casein, a protein that some studies suggest may cause digestive discomfort. In Europe, cows often produce A2 beta-casein milk, which some people find easier to digest.
Dairy products in the US tend to contain more lactose, and French/Italian dairy products have less due to the prevalence of aged cheeses and fermentation.
There are many other differences, and none of these seem related to some sort of mystery-makes-you-shit-yourself additive.
A2 is starting to be a thing in the US.
<selfpromotion>We sell uncolored raw milk cheddar cheese made with A2 milk, if someone has an issue with cheese in the US give ours a try!</selfpromotion>
Similar thing with my wife and bread. In the US she developed/discovered/exposed a gluten intolerance, to the point that she removed it from her diet entirely, but bread in France is ok for her.
In that case it's not a gluten intolerance; there is gluten in bread in France. Might be a sugar thing? Bread in the US is more likely to contain added sugar and/or HFCS than in most countries.
That just means that her gluten intolerance is stress related, rather than there being any difference in the gluten in France.
So it might not have anything to do with regulation at all?
Possibly, but dairy processing is heavily regulated.
It's literally written on the article "The EU has a more robust system to review food additives than the US does"
Most other countries, maybe, now compared to the EU...
Sure the US is ahead of the EU. The EU allows 11 [1] synthetic food dyes while the US only allows 9 [2]
[1] https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/topics/topic/food-colours
[2] https://www.fda.gov/food/color-additives-information-consume...
I count 14 for the EU.
Quinoline Yellow (E 104), Sunset Yellow FCF/Orange Yellow S (E 110), Azorubine/Carmoisine (E 122), Amaranth (E 123), Ponceau 4R/Cochineal Red A (E 124), Erythrosine/Red No. 3 (E 127), Allura Red AC (E 129), Patent Blue V (E 131), Indigotine/Indigo carmine (E 132), Brilliant Blue FCF (E 133), Green S (E 142), Brilliant Black PN (E 151), Brown HT (E 155), Litholrubine BK (E 180)
Some of these names may be confusing since their names imply they're natural when in fact they are synthetic (e.g. Amaranth, Cochineal Red A, Indigo carmine).
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Good thing only the numbers are important and not the health effects!
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Why don’t you do the comparison?
Because people have done it before and we have something named the internet
https://www.tilleydistribution.com/insights/food-regulations...
https://eatwell.uky.edu/sites/default/files/2024-08/foods-us...
Source?